The Washington state unemployment rate rose to 8.1% in February 2009, its the highest since late 1983, the 651,000 lost jobs, the government said Friday. The Labor Department report showed that continuing the wave of layoffs, the desperate attempt of employers to reduce costs. The net loss of 651 000 job cuts came after the payroll in the two previous months, according to updated figures. The economy lost 681,000 jobs in December and 655 000 in January.
Employers are shedding at an alarming rate and look for other ways to reduce costs at the expense of wages, such as reducing working hours, freeze or reduce wages, because the recession reduces sales and profits. Consumers worldwide reduce their costs, as the global crisis affects everyone. Since the recession began in December 2007, the economy has lost 4.4 million jobs, more than half in the past four months. Therefore, the national unemployment rose to 8.1% from 7.6% in January, the highest since December 1983, when the rate stood at 8.3%. The total number of unemployed reached 12.5 million. Moreover, the number of people forced to work part time for economic reasons rose by 787,000 to 8.6 million people. The sector would like to work full time, but their working hours were reduced or could not find full-time jobs.
Meanwhile, the average working week remained at 33.3 hours in February, matching the mark in December. Job losses were widespread in February. The construction companies eliminated 104,000 jobs, 168,000 factories and nearly 40,000 retail business. Professional and business services eliminated 180,000, with 78,000 lost in the temporary employment agency. Financial firms reduced their workforce by 44,000. The travel and hotel erased 33,000 jobs.
However, a few areas prevented the contraction of employment: education and health services, as well as public sector officials, whose staff grew last month. The disappearance of jobs and the evaporation of personal and business assets due to shrinking home values, savings plans for retirement investments _ based _ tax deferral and other investments led to reduced consumer spending and companies shorten their templates. It's a vicious cycle in which the negative consequences of the economy is biting its tail, which in turn worsens the economic downturn. President Barack Obama has developed a multifaceted plan to bring the country out of recession: a plan for extraordinary expenses of $ 787 000 million, a new initiative to rescue banks by billions of dollars and a consignment of 75,000 million dollars to prevent foreclosures.